Live Blog Update| Gaza Under Attack
This is an entry from: Live: Israel kills at least 58 Palestinians in 24 hours

Evening recap

22 December 2024 23:43 GMT

Our liveblog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

-Aljazeera, citing medical sources in Gaza, says Israel has killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in airstrikes on Sunday.

-A previously declared "safe zone" in southern Gaza for forcibly displaced Palestinians was bombed by Israel on Sunday. Video shared to X showed a fiery blaze in Al-Mawasi, a crowded tent camp area at night. 

-Israel ordered the closure and forced displacement on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in a besieged area on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety. The head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Husam Abu Safiya, told Reuters via text message that obeying the order to shut down was "next to impossible" because there were not enough ambulances to get patients out. Israel also killed three civilians in the area on Sunday. 

-The first phase of a potential ceasefire and prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas may see 250 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the children and five female soldiers held in Gaza, as well as some of the elderly. That's according to reporting by Egyptian broadcaster Al-Ghad, citing unnamed sources.  Israel reportedly also wants 11 male captives to be released from Gaza during this exchange. 

-In a new video released Sunday by the Hamas military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, a fighter who says he is in northern Gaza warns that Israeli forces will be "scattered and burnt" by the booby traps and explosions that await them. Another fighter adds that Israel has yet to declare any victories inside Gaza, and that its people remain steadfast after 14 months of bombardment.

-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would continue acting against the Houthis in Yemen, whom he accused of threatening world shipping and the international order, and called on Israelis to be steadfast. "Just as we acted forcefully against the terrorist arms of Iran's axis of evil, so we will act against the Houthis," he said in a video statement.